


Fanfictionicus Create-o-saurus

by sherlock221Bismymuse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel, Multi-Fandom, NCIS, Sherlock (TV), Supernatural
Genre: AU, Crack, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29429277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlock221Bismymuse/pseuds/sherlock221Bismymuse
Summary: What kind of fanfiction reader are you?
Relationships: Reader - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13





	Fanfictionicus Create-o-saurus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tranquilityhope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tranquilityhope/gifts).



> Gifted to Tranquilityhope because this was inspired by our chats around the way we deal with reading fanfiction!

_Entry from the journal log of Charlie Darwin the 42 nd, from Planet Earth 99.0, outer ring of the Archive Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy._

**Stardate 22. 6000.Uo3**

“As I continued my sociological, psychological and anthropological research into the origins of that vast forest of fanfiction from humankind on Original Earth, my thoughts turned to those mysterious creatures that roamed the fandom forests—the fanfiction readers.

In the manner of Carl Linnaeus, who gave us a way to classify the forsaken animals thousands of years ago on the First Mother Planet , the classification for an elephant for example would be:

  * Kingdom: Animalia.
  * Phylum: Chordata.
  * Class: Mammalia.
  * Order: Proboscidea.
  * Family: Elephantidae.
  * Genus: Loxodonta.
  * Species: Loxodonta africana (savannah or African bush elephant)
  * Species: Loxodonta cyclotis (African forest elephant)
  * Species: Elephas maximus (Asian elephant)



Since the fandom readers and writers are equally enormous and magnificent beasts, I would like to suggest the following classification for them:

Kingdom: Fandomalia

Phylum: Metasaurus

Class: Fanworkoria

Order: Shipperdeae

Family: Fanfictionicus

Genus: Creatosaurus

Species: Readerotis and Writerina, both very different beasts who may occasionally inter breed.

In fact, after many years of careful analysis, I would like to propose that both the species evolve in a certain way and become different creatures that are easily recognizable as such.

In layperson’s language, the following categories of fanfiction readers may be observed:

 **Worms** : Start off in a fairly spineless way, burrowing their way into a few fics, like the bookworms of yore, consuming but not contributing through any kudos or comments. These may be folks who don’t read any books IRL but are drawn to the written word in fandom due to their love for the characters of the story.

 **Squirrels** : They may not actually read as much as the worms but they bookmark endlessly and relentlessly. Sometimes they forget where they buried their nuts but they don’t starve because they are constantly finding and burying more.

 **Magpies:** They also store all their shiny fics in folders and bookmarks but they know exactly where what is kept and they use different materials to line their nest depending on the mood.

 **Cats:** They saunter elegantly through the solitary fandom they worship and ignore all else. They may leave a rare brief comment saying ‘well done’ if they are in a generous mood.

 **Dogs:** They are an absolute delight and leave happy comments, hearts and smiley emojis all over the fanworks. They greet the writers with extreme enthusiasm even after long absences. They joyfully slobber over many ships in the same fandom and can handle many fandoms at the same time. They often smile in their sleep as they dream about their favourite fanfics.

 **Panthers** : They stalk a favourite writer and subscribe to them and wait and watch and pounce as soon as something gets posted.

 **Snakes:** They rustle through the grass and leave unexpected and often uncalled for poisonous comments on fics. Fortunately, they are a very rare breed.

 **Bears:** They wake up once in a while, go on a rampage reading every single fic written by a favourite author or in a fandom or an OTP and often leave large pots of honey in the comments section.

 **Beavers** : They build dams to protect the precious fics they love, often by copy pasting or downloading pdfs that they can read offline again and again and wallow in the pond of words.

 **Meerkats:** They have short attention spans and need instant gratification. They keep popping up in the comments section of WIPs and asking ‘when is the next chapter coming?!’ ‘Are you still writing this fic?’ ‘Will there be a sequel?’ ‘Can you write faster?’ ‘I have to know what happens next’

 **Songbirds:** They are lovely folks who trill joyfully from fic to fic, usually liking everything without over analysing and always leave simple and pretty comments. Sometimes they make podfics also.

 **Hummingbirds** : They have very short attention spans and high energy and they may flit from fic to fic and never ever return to a WIP even if they really loved it because they just don’t remember it exists any more.

 **Spiders:** They sit in the dark corners and have a predilection for the stuff that really scares most of the average readers. They are the ones who read incest fics, serial killer AUs, non con, violence and they spin out multiple webs of kinks.

 **Owls:** They latch onto a philosophical or metaphorical angle in a well written fic and engage in long and fascinating intellectual discussions with the author, often to the point of psycho- analyzing and giving incredible insights into the characters that even the original writers would not have figured out or understood.

 **Lions** : They sit on the giant rock in the middle of the forest, sunning themselves from where they can survey everything. They are too royal and too picky to trawl through the whole lot of fanfics and will only choose from pre -selected menus aka ficrecs.

 **Tigresses:** They are powerful predators and when they find a fic they like, they will like and comment and then check comments written on it by others and if they like another comment, they will check that person out to see if they have also written or bookmarked anything and then they will also obsessively bookmark and read those.

 **Wolves:** They grin and salivate at ABO fiction that most of the other animals stay well clear of. Sometimes they start howling at the moon if they don’t get the fic they want.

 **Bonobos:** They want only porn. With or without plot. It doesn’t matter. As long as everyone gets naked at some point and has hot and heavy sex, they give two bananas about simple physics and biology of the body parts and their alignments. As long as there is at least one orgasm, they are happily swinging from their reader trees.

It is my opinion, in keeping with the animal metaphors that the fandom as a whole works like a rabbit by hopping around and creating new burrows which all these other animals often find themselves falling down into.

Curiouser and curiouser….

.

It is worth noting that the various species intermingle quite congenially and sometimes one reader may manifest more than one creature.

However, they are all usually secretive, maintain protective camouflage at all times and are mostly nocturnal.

During the daytime they function as teachers, lawyers, doctors, managers, mothers, partners, students, editors, quietly professional office workers. They attend meetings, make plans, draft laws, save lives, run governments, write political op- eds, teach students, learn from teachers, work in labs, invent vaccines and machines and new languages.

But it is known that some of them do manage to roam the forest in the daytime and sometimes mimic a chameleon and can swivel two eyeballs independently thus keeping one eye on the zoom call while reading a fic with the other.

.

Writers are also unique in their patterns and much has been analyzed about them already so I will refrain. They are of course known for the most incredible and ridiculous internet searches including the best ways to hide a body, werewolf sex, blood spatter patterns, sleeping positions, legality of incest, how tentacles work, can one melt a waffle iron, can one have sex in space, among others.

Suffice to say that they are wildly creative and eventually produced so many alternate universes that it permanently changed the fabric of the existing Universe as we know it!

After the great explosion of 2022 when fandom boundaries were taken down and fans refused to live in secret pseudonyms and hideouts anymore and spilled over into real life, we know from the Chronicles of the Great Coming Out that they decided that everyone was to be allowed to love whoever and whenever they wanted.

No government could withstand the resulting onslaught of love and peace (and some tentacles) and in no time at all, all legal restrictions on sex, marriage, love were erased, leaving only informed consent as the deciding criterion for all adults.

People got themselves chipped and tagged so that they could tell others if they were inclined towards a soulmate, ABO, slow burn, crack , mild angst, fluff so they could find the right match and evolve the perfect relationship.

Religion broke down as a concept since no one was listening any more.

What a glorious era to have lived through!

I still get gooseflesh as I imagine, like so many trailblazers before them, all these amazing fandom readers and writers who broke all barriers and shone a light on the most incredible human powers of them all—imagination and the capacity to give and receive love.

As we know, the Universe has never been the same since.

In closing I would like to reiterate my deepest wish that the beasts of Fanfictionicus Meta-o-saurus will continue to roam through the infinite boundaries of space-time and grow and evolve and remain immortal.

All hail the Fandom!”

**Author's Note:**

> Uo3= Universe of Our Own
> 
> Unrelated but fascinating facts: Elephants belong to the family Elephantidae, the sole remaining family within the order Proboscidea which belongs to the superorder Afrotheria. Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria. Elephants and sirenians are further grouped in the clade Tethytheria.
> 
> If you think any other animal/creature needs to be included do share in the comments section:)
> 
> I had to tag it for Sherlock BBC and Supernatural fandoms because it would not allow me to leave that section blank but of course this is more of a universal meta !


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